Fall Favorites

Wilton Halloween Cookie Cutters (Amazon link)

While I have always loved to cook and bake, it have never been more enjoyable and rewarding for me than when I am in the kitchen with one of my daughters (when they were children or today!) or grandbabies.

Children make the entire affair messier, slower, and considered (by some anyway) to a bit less “Instagram-worthy” – however, they also make it all a perfect and absolute joy. More about cooking and baking with children in a moment, but first I want to show and tell you about a wonderful set of Halloween Cookie Cutters (Amazon link) from Wilton. They’re pictured above and in many of the photos shown below of me and Maddox (4) in action yesterday.

Halloween Cookies by Maddox!

His little brother Jacoby (3) fell asleep just as the cookies were coming together, so we plan to make more next week so he can take part. That ought to be worth the price of admission!

This adorable set of Halloween cookie cutters includes pumpkin, ghost, and candy corn shapes. We actually ran out of yellow food coloring, so we pivoted mid-cookie decorating and turned the “candy corn” into witches hats.

Pumpkins, Ghosts and an Unexpected Witch’s Hat

As Maddox said, “That works anyways!”

When we went shopping for our sugar cookie and icing ingredients, we grabbed some really pretty sparkly sprinkles for the ghosts… they’re very much glamour ghosts, you understand. Fortunately we (somehow!) still had some of the Wilton Sprinkles I told y’all about yesterday. Jacoby was (wide) awake for that one, so (trust me) having sprinkles left is thisclose to a miracle!

The Wilton Halloween Cookie Cutters (Amazon link) are extraordinary – VERY well-made and comfortable to use (for small hands and larger hands). Some cookie cutters are floppy and awkward, these are an absolute dream. I know they’ll be used for years and years and years with my grandbabies… all three will will make memories with me with these and that fills my heart with all kinds of sweet joy.

Tips for Baking with Children

Maddox Rolling Out the Dough

1. Through out boy/girl stereotypes. As a mother of three girls who always helped in the kitchen and three grandabies who are all boys (ages 2, 3, and 4…  how cool is that?). I will admit that there are many things that are quite different between the two. However, cooking is wonderful fun for everyone! Helping clean up, afterward, isn’t quite as fun, but with the right energy, you can make it  as fun as possible (putting on a song they love like “Monster Mash” helps). Never assume the little boy(s) in your family won’t enjoy cooking and baking just as much as the little girls. After all, think of all the male chefs in the world. Their passion very well may have started in the kitchen with their parents, aunts/uncles, or grandparents.
2. Supervise, don’t smother! When cooking with children, you want them to enjoy the experience… you want them to, hopefully, fall in love with both cooking and spending time with you. One sure way to keep that from happening is to criticize or hyper-direct their every move. Let them get creative…. let them do as many (safe) things by themselves as possible…. let them have an eye-level view of everything going on (a chair helps with the real short ones!)… let them have fun… and, for goodness sakes, let them be kids! When my girls were small and now with my grandbabies, I obviously knew that if I rolled the dough, it would be more even and if I chose the colors or did the icing, it would look more “professional” but where’s the fun in that?! Maddox decided halfway through the icing that he wanted some ghosts that were his favorite color (blue), so by gosh, we made that happen. He said they were “Sonic the Hedgehog ghosts” and he even put red shoes on one of them! Unfortunately, he bit the shoes off before I could get a picture (the shoeless Sonic ghost is pictures somewhere above.. just look for the bite marks!). If you make a child feel successful and confident, he/she will be much more inclined to want to pursue the interest. Make him/her feel like they’re letting you down or that you have to “correct” or “fix” their every move and you’re going to lose the cutest help you could ever hope for.
3. Obviously, keep them safe. This almost goes without saying, but I have to say it. Be sure they stay away from knives, hot pans, hot water, and the stove.
4. Use it (and everything!) as a FUN learning experience. Turn off the tv, apps, and the outside world and just live totally in the moment with your child(ren). Count cookies, use math, teach color combinations, shapes, etc. When making cookies, all sorts of opportunities for new words come up (rolling pin, flatten, dusting with flour…). I also love the fact that lessons for “planning” and “reasoning” comes up… for example, when cutting cookies, deciding which shape can be used as the dough dwindles down or which shape can be used the most often. Maddox figured out at one point (as I watched silently… the best learning is ALLOWED to happen after all) that turning the triangle shape “opposite” ways allowed him to keep from rolling the dough again…. not that he didn’t love doing that!

Maddox, Concentrating on His Ghosts!

Also, keep in mind that (to a very large degree) people love to be around us because of the way we make them feel. Make the children in your kitchen feel loved, welcome, and downright cherished!

I want to extend a large, heartfelt thank you to Wilton for sending me their WONDERFUL products in exchange for telling you about them. They helped me create extra special memories this Halloween and I know they will for many years to come.

Find Wilton’s Phenomenal Baking Products on Amazon (Amazon link).